Explore crowdfunding to fund homeless services

Rodney O'Neill, a homeless man, and his dog settle in at San Francisco’s new Navigation Center in the Mission District.

Rodney O'Neill, a homeless man, and his dog settle in at San...

San Franciscans who are eager to donate to help the homeless also want their dollars to have the biggest impact. Yet, with a myriad of nonprofits throughout the city, how can a donor decide? More cohesiveness is needed among organizations providing shelter, and centralized decision-making is needed to unify and synchronize the spending on homelessness.

This tactic has proven successful in Southern California. Spearheaded by United Way of Greater Los Angeles, the Funders Collaborative has executed a multipronged approach to find suitable long-term housing for homeless individuals. UWGLA’s coordinated entry system, called Home for Good, uses evidence-based decision-making to identify and prioritize the most vulnerable individuals living on the streets of Los Angeles and throughout Los Angeles County. The clients are then assisted with transition to housing and matched to an appropriate residence for their needs. Home for Good, which engages 200 community organizations, has housed more than 20,000 homeless individuals since 2011. San Francisco has housed that many since 2004, but the influx of those living on the streets has increased, likely due to the simultaneous housing crisis.

United Way Bay Area has not been directly involved with a solution for permanent housing. However, San Francisco has made efforts to roll out coordinated-entry-system programs similar to those in Los Angeles. The Supportive Services for Veteran Families and HUD-Veterans Affairs Supportive Housing programs have worked on designating permanent housing for homeless veterans and their families. As for the broader homeless population, San Francisco has hired a consulting group to assess and improve upon its coordinated entry system. The program, called Connecting Point, finds both emergency and permanent housing placement for those in need. Connecting Point does not yet have well-organized entry points for clients nor standardized methods for triage, prioritization and matching to housing. A major setback is the lack of a shared homeless management information system among the shelter providers, which was key to the success of Los Angeles’ Home for Good.

In order to expand the reach and resources for Connecting Point, San Franciscans could be directly involved with crowdfunding a tech-driven solution. San Franciscans could donate as little as $3 a month (10 cents per day), to a single fund that would go directly toward building new data-infrastructure and prioritization tools for Connecting Point. Additionally, the donors’ dollars could be tracked, like a FedEx package, as money is funneled through the app for allocation to particular goals, allowing for 100 percent transparency. To trigger a snowball-effect within a donor’s social network, monthly contributions could be pinned to social media outlets, perhaps encouraging friendly competition.

Even if only one quarter of the 800,000 residents of San Francisco donated 40 cents a day, this effort could feasibly generate nearly $30 million within a year. That’s more than half of the estimated $50 million to run a citywide program to shelter the homeless.

The Homeless problem

This crowdfunding app could be run as — yes — a startup. Interestingly, another startup, called HandUp, uses a similar Kickstarter-based model to fight homelessness. However, many of its campaigns are for a single homeless individual or a specific small nonprofit. These one-time donations to individuals or fragmented organizations may not be the best approach.

A consortium of seasoned entrepreneurs could launch the startup and find creative ways for obtaining return on investments. For example, the founders might partner with tech companies that could dole out incentives (e.g., discounted services or special deals) for those participating in the “10-cent economy.” Alternatively, tech companies could match donations that reach a certain threshold. The startup would then receive a proportion of the companies’ earnings from their business promotion.

As the world’s epicenter of innovation, let’s unveil our own capacity to fundraise and adopt coordinated strategies for a system that would curb homelessness. San Francisco would then be at the forefront of the technology revolution driving long-lasting social change.

Sarah Daniels is a Bay Area native and a Ph.D. candidate at UC Berkeley in the School of Public Health. Emily Buzzell, Marcel Degas and Chris Ko also contributed their expertise.